So what will Labour cut?

Labour is claiming that it will cut migrant numbers by somewhere between 20,000 and 35,000 to get net migration from 40,000 to somewhere between 5,000 and 20,000.

Most of the change in net migration is about fewer people leaving NZ, and Kiwis returning home. So to get net migration down to level Labour talks about would require massive cuts in some categories. Labour should front up and detail where they will cut, and how much.

Let’s look at the various categories of residency visas granted.

Business/Skilled

Last year was 20,007. This is already 27% lower than under Labour in 2007/08. They’d have to ban all skilled migrants to get to the levels they talk about

Humanitarian/International

Last year was 3,262. Is Labour going to cut our refugee quota, or just the skilled migrants quota?

The Samoa quota had 938 people enter on it last year. Will Labour reduce that? If they can’t name where they will reduce and how much, then how do we know?

Parent/Sibling/Adult Child stream

Last year was 4,401. This is already 15% lower than under Labour in 2007/08.

Family Sponsored

Last year was 11,291. This is 19% higher than in 2007/08. You could make some changes here but if you took it back to 2007/08 levels that is only a reduction of 1,832 – less than 10% of what Labour needs.

Almost all of these categories are people bring partners in. So will Labour ban migrants from having partners come to NZ? How would they reduce the level in this category?

Total

The total number of migrants in 2012/13 was 38,961. Labour is saying they will effectively cut that in half. But in their last year in office it was 46,077 – 15% higher than it currently is.

The reality is that we do not have more migrants being allowed into New Zealand. In fact it has reduced.

What we do have more of are three types of temporary entrants. They are:

Temporary work visas. The Christchurch rebuild is the major factor here. Is Labour going to reduce these, and slow up the rebuild?

Student visas. These generate billions of dollars in tuition fees and also domestic spending. You’d have to be nuts to cap these, as they subsidise the cost of tertiary education for Kiwis.

Working holidays. We have agreements with many countries to allow young citizens from their countries to work here for a year or so on working holidays. We would have to break our agreements to reduce these, and that would mean young Kiwis would lose the right to do working holidays in those countries as they are generally reciprocal.

So everytime Labour says we have too many migrants coming to New Zealand, make sure you ask where will they cut, and how much. That is a question they won’t or can’t answer.

UPDATE: Trevor Mallard is saying they may make changes in the investor category. Well that is fewer than 100 migrants a year. So once again, how will they get net migration down to 20,000? If you say that is where it should be, you need to explain how. Otherwise it is just pandering to fear.

My, what a large and elaborate straw man you’ve built there. It remains a straw man, however. Here is the argument Labour would have to be making for your post to be relevant:

1. Immigration has increased substantially since Labour was last in governement.
2. It should therefore be reduced back to the more reasonable levels of the last Labour government,

What a powerful rebuttal your post would be, should Labour have been foolish enough to actually make that argument! How disappointing it must be for you and your readers that they haven’t made that argument.

Here’s their actual argument:
1. A rapid increase in net migration to NZ is one of a number of factors putting pressure on house prices in Auckland.
2. It should therefore be addrressed along with those other factors.
3. Non-NZ/Aus migration is the only type that can be addressed.
4. Therefore, that’s the type that should be focused on.

National’s counter-argument to this is:
1. Auckland house prices are fine, there’s no way you could call 800 Gs for a shoebox when the median salary’s around 50 Gs a ‘crisis’ now, surely?
2. Immigration numbers can’t be touched because – well, it would be just very bad, what are you a RACIST or something?

The fact is, the numbers you’ve quoted could be reduced. There isn’t some magic theorem by which 20,000 is demonstrated to be the perfect number of business-category immigrants to NZ, and there’s no moral law banning us from considering how many family-category migrants might result from accepting any particular immigrant.

jp_1983

Simon

Can’t cut immigration it holds house prices up, (keeps banks solvent allowing the RBNZ ponzi scheme to continue) and brings in productive people (allowing Nat / Lab to fleece to fund the State and the feckless).

Immigration also brings in a wide range of other benefits for the country.

The 3 things keeping NZ from being a failed state are immigration, massive debt creation and Chinese money printing.

Chinese money printing is slowing, debt creation mathematically has to stop at some point and reverse. Immigration is the only thing the State can control.

In face of a failing State the immigration doors will be thrown open at some stage. 100K plus pa easy. The State has got no other option.

Psycho Milt is saying what he thinks they should have said. But they have not. Cunliffe has on multiple times talked about the “normal” level of net migration under Labour, strongly implying that is where it should be. He is the one who keeps talking about net migration of 5,000 to 20,000. So I’m calling him on it.

Here’s their actual argument:
1. A rapid increase in net migration to NZ is one of a number of factors putting pressure on house prices in Auckland.
2. It should therefore be addrressed along with those other factors.
3. Non-NZ/Aus migration is the only type that can be addressed.
4. Therefore, that’s the type that should be focused on.

Where do they make that argument? Cunliffe was vague on Q & A on Sunday but I think he ruled out Humanitarian/International and Family.

They can’t address any movement of New Zealanders to and from anywhere in the world, not just Australia.

So about the only room to change substantial numbers is the 20,000 odd business/skilled category, which would have to be gutted.

And what if New Zealanders reverse their net movements next year? It’s not easy to just turn a major category tap off and on based on historical numbers.

Mobile Michael

It’s quite simple, really. Labour are promoting policy that will slow the economy significantly. And will go into power with NZ First or the Greens who will make it worse. That’ll stop Kiwis returning, and make more Kiwis leave for Australia.

Voila! Net immigration will fall to 5000-20000. Possibly less.

Um, could the last New Zealander left please turn off the lights as you leave.

kowtow

I’ve consistently said the same thing every day for the last two weeks, which is, Labour supports a well managed positive steady positive migration flow that is right for our communities.

Not cuts, no. Nol, IK’m saying that with a high level of returning New Zealanders that sustainable flow will have to be set at higher levels than previous rules of thumb, and I have refused at all points to put a number or a target on it.

What we’re saying though that yoyoing migration flows all over the map, and the treasury says that whenever you get above 40,000 net you start having a discernible interest rate impact, that isn’t good for the migrant communities that are all living here, and it’s not good for New Zealanders who are paying mortgages.

The problem is that most of the yoyoing is movements of New Zealanders that can’t be controlled.

So the balance that always has to be struck in migration planning is the need to satisfy the skills needs of our economy and the legitimate humanitarian concerns of family reunion and our refuge commitments, which will not change. Which will not change.

Then getting that right in respect of the overall impact of the flow, and that’s a balancing act, that’s quite right.

Corin, I believe New Zealanders are mature enough to hear the words that are actually being said, not what the Prime Minister is making up, and not what others might have chosen to misinterpret.

Labour supports our migrant communities, we support a positive steady net inflow of migrants to reunify families, contributing to skills shortages being addressed, and to help build a vibrant economy.

What we do not support is a random approach where the current Government leaves it to the market and you end up destablising a lot of things including migrant communities.

Corin Dann: But it’s not random is it, that’s not true. They have a points system. They’re not randomly taking people in. Many people find it very difficult to get in here.

David Cunliffe: I think you will find that even the current Government starts getting very uncomfortable if the numbers keep climbing, and I would challenge, ah, you and others to challenge the Prime Minister about whether there is a number beyond which he believes constraints should be brought to bear.

Corin Dann: to be clear, you’re saying that there is a limit, what, 50, 60 thousand net?

David Cunliffe: I’m not putting a number on it. I’m just saying you have to balance off the need to balance skills, the need for building strong and positive communities.

So Cunliffe avoided being challenged on blatant bullshit (the randm accusation), avoided explaining what numbers he would look at cutting, challenged to media to ask Key what number he thought should initiate restraints but refused to give any numbers himself.

Alan

Cunliffe was a traincrash on Q&A, I don’t think anyone would argue with that; he talked in broad terms when he needed to have hard numbers. He didn’t look all that well briefed, come debate time he’s going to need all the numbers at his fingertips

But surely we’re going to get some hard numbers from Labour very soon, on this and on their spending plans?

We’re only 110 days from the election, the phoney war must soon be over.

redqueen

So more Kiwis are staying here, or returning, and foreign migrants are stable in number…how isn’t this a ‘good news story’? We’ve finally got what we wanted, eh? ‘Too many Kiwis are going abroad’, well, now they want to stay or come home. SHOCK, HORROR!!! Instead, we now need to invent a ‘panic’ that too many people want to live here…these people really have nothing better to do than complain, don’t they?

OneTrack

Pyscho – “Auckland house prices are fine, there’s no way you could call 800 Gs for a shoebox when the median salary’s around 50 Gs a ‘crisis’ now, surely?”

A number like that might be true in your Chardonnay Socialist lands of Herne Bay, Ponsonby and Remuera, which is where all the first home buyers on $50K absolutely must live (of course. Must see and be seen, darling).

Maybe if you look on TradeMe and look at places like Henderson or Papakura (oh, the horror, living out on the edges of the city like Mum and Dad did when they started out.), suddenly the “problem” ™ changes somewhat.

But, of course, if we trash our good-will in other parts of the world, in a dog-whistle, populous measure which hasn’t been formally investigated ( afaik) but is instead being litigated by soundbites on for a party who is desperate to get back in to power and a biased left-wing media that is only to happy to help their brothers in the cause.

Except, every time the come up with that latest downtrodden “first-home buyer”, they turn out to have more than enough money anyway, or they are wanting to buy and investment property, and they are always in Herne Bay.

Solution to the problem: cut through the Labour-led Auckland City Council red tape and build some houses.

UPDATE: Trevor Mallard is saying they may make changes in the investor category. Well that is fewer than 100 migrants a year. So once again, how will they get net migration down to 20,000? If you say that is where it should be, you need to explain how. Otherwise it is just pandering to fear.
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Simple; make things bad again so the rest of us move to Aussie like the past.

Easy enough to do.
First though will have to beat the aussies into submission over Kiwi’s entitlements. Goff can do that now they have a Liberal Govt.

Rich Prick

If we end up with a Labour/Greens/Internet-Mana/NZ First nightmare the so-called immigration problem will take care of itself. I’m not too sure who will be left to pay the assorted losers’ benefits that who vote for that nightmare though.

redqueen

Odakyu-sen

I feel a rant coming on.
Whatever happened to “sustainability”? If we can’t grow our own population naturally in this day and age, then we don’t deserve to be a nation.

Think about it. What would happen if we had a no-immigration policy (with the exception of married spouses and children)? Gosh, we’d have to train people ourselves (or bring them temporarily in on closed-ended work contracts for specific projects).

Whatever happened to “home-grown”?
What would happen to house prices?
How would our demographic profile change over time?

If I were an iwi-enabled individual or a worker, I would be overjoyed with the prospect of stemming the diluting tide of foreigners “taking all our jobs.”

What would be the downsides of cutting immigration way, way, way down?

davidp

Labour’s policy:

1. Slash immigrant numbers.
2. Hospitals now understaffed. Waiting lists grow significantly. Some people die waiting for operations.
3. Christchurch rebuild slows right down. People give up on Christchurch and move somewhere else. Like Auckland.
4. NZ ridiculed in overseas press, like we ridicule France for voting for the anti-immigrant National Front.

Result:

1. Auckland property prices fall by one or two percent.
2. Labour proclaim their policy a triumph, because a $1m home is unaffordable, but a $990k home is affordable by just about everyone.
3. Racists are happy that they don’t have to listen to so much Chinese being spoken in street.

redqueen

@Odakyu-sen

Well, to begin with, NZ would basically be cut adrift from international skills. Things like, oh, computers and mobiles wouldn’t be here (or, more particularly, the next ‘big thing’ won’t be), because we won’t really have the local skills to handle this. Granted, we could pay johnny foreigner to come here and build us a mobile phone network, or to buy a computer, but we’re basically not going to have those skills here and will, even if we can buy something, be well behind any curve. At the moment, we can bring in new skills to meet demands (and are still behind the curve with that).

As for training people and being ‘home grown’, you’re assuming things can be worked out in a time efficient manner. It takes years to develop skills, experience, etc, along with needing people to train the new people (or be sufficiently close to the technical frontier themselves). We might be able to meet demand in some areas, but we simply will not be able to support an entire modern economy’s needs. That may sound defeatist, but it’s a reality, which isn’t going to stop until we get probably above 20 – 30 million people (and I, for one, don’t want to see that!). Even Australia isn’t capable of doing everything locally and Canada is probably the closest, but with a massive advantage being located right next to the US (or a disadvantage, but we’re talking about skills and experience generation).

So there may be a ‘feel good’ factor of bashing foreigners, I guess, but hardly practical. Also, as has been noted before, current immigration isn’t about more foreigners, but less Kiwis leaving / more returning home. So these points, under current circumstances, are really irrelevant.

burt

kiwi in america

Labour’s polling has found the only significant achilles heel National has is house prices in Auckland. National’s solutions are multi faceted, don’t led themselves to easy sound bites and will take some more time to fully bed in and make a difference. Labour’s plan is typically populist and easy to summarize and Cunliffe has found a sexy new wrapper – scaremongering on immigration. He figures if it works for Winston, it’ll work for me forgetting that Labour was in power not that long ago and HE was a Minister of Immigration so any plan he suggests gets put through that complicating lens. It’s why he’s gone mum on the details and numbers being now merely content to milk the demagoguery and scare tactics for any electoral benefit he can.

Shameless and dishonest and perhaps why he’s flirting with single digits as preferred PM.

When I lived in China, you’d see cats in cages. Some Disneyland-living expats would buy them, to save them from being eaten. What a pointless waste of money, which is what our tax dollars will be coincidentally under a Labour-led government.

burt

Labour has ruled out making changes to :
1. the right of NZers to return home
2. Australians, Cook Islanders, Niueans and Tokelauans having an absolute right of access to New Zealand
3. quota arrangements with Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati
4. refugees, who arrive mainly from Myanmar, Colombia, Bhutan, Iraq and Sri Lanka
5. family reunification
These leaves only student visas, work visas and investors.
In other words, if NZ is doing you a favour, we can keep coming.
If you might be wanting to invest or study in NZ, Labour doesn’t want you.
This is totally mental.

wreck1080

Odakyu-sen

redqueen raises some points.

1. What proportion of immigrants possess these “international skills”? Can we not send Kiwis out into the world to acquire such skills and then bring them back to NZ? (Reality check: Knowing Kiwis, as soon as they acquire the skills, someone will make them a (job) offer they can’t refuse and that will be the last we see of them.)
2. Why the need to rush after the coat-tails of the world? I propose that we diversify our goals and try a different approach. Why focus so much on the very latest in cutting-edge communication technology when a significant number of school children may be functionally illiterate?

It’s not so much “bashing foreigners”; I feel that we should plot our own course in the world rather than rush headlong after the rest of the lemmings. Whatever happened to the “good old DIY Kiwi spirit?

Jack5

Hooton at 10.05 has identified three elements that make Labour’s immigration policy flaky:

2. Australians, Cook Islanders, Niueans and Tokelauans having an absolute right of access to New Zealand
3. quota arrangements with Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Kiribati
4. refugees, who arrive mainly from Myanmar, Colombia, Bhutan, Iraq and Sri Lanka

No-one is going to shut out Australians, because Australia would then shut off open entry to Australia of NZ’ers, which is a key economic safety valve for NZ. Cook Islanders, Nieueans, and Tokelauans are small in numbers and have little effect.

Issues 3 and 4 are where neither Labour nor National would front up.

As for business migrants. This should be a great resource for NZ, but we have overwhelmingly attracted people at the stage of their business careers where they are ready to concentrate on a more leisurely lifestyle. We’ve had fuck all benefit in exports. Core National support activities such as real estate, immigration agents, cheap-labour contractors, and language schools, and bugger all else.

A decade ago, NZ was comparing itself with Israel in evolving high technology. Now Israel has left us light years behind in technology industry. Israel’s Army pumped money into defence projects, but at least as importantly, Israel recruited tens of thousands of Russian engineers and other tech-skilled people, and far from all of them were Jewish. Meanwhile NZ talked and talked and talked technology and promoted it in schools where science competitions tended to be won by kids making displays about the environment. The point is Israel succeeded brilliantly with its Russian-educated immigrants, while NZ got plane loads of real estate salesmen and saleswomen.

altiora

Agree Jack5: when will we have a proper debate about immigration. There is still a killing to be made from allowing immigration of highly skilled Eastern Europeans, for whom New Zealand wages are still attractive. I should imagine however as the EU expands, Eastern Europeans will have bigger fish to fry. Insterestingly, our orchestras cottoned on about the quality on offer in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s, but no other industry has.

We do need to urgently review the family unification category. I live in Hamilton, and I am increasingly seeing significant numbers of frail elderly Chinese, with minimal English skills, who seem to have been dumped there. That can’t be good for our health system, which is already struggling to cope with the aging population.

Odakyu-sen

I just want to have open debate of the whole issue of immigration into New Zealand. Let’s get the arguments out on the table. Let’s sift through the research into the experiences of other nations (like the UK) in this area.

What really dismays me is the “let’s not talk about it openly,” “let’s get on to the get-rich-selling-real estate bandwagon,” “let’s bitch about the ‘foreigners’ behind their backs,” “let’s pick on the easy-to-spot Chinese.”

Hell, maybe NZers deserve all that is coming to them given their insular and petty attitude towards such an important issue of the choice of the culture of their society and the future society for their children. Can Kiwis not choose their future? Is it always up to the immigration department (and the faceless bureaucrats pulling the levers) to control the future makeup of this nation?

Such a thing would never happen in Japan (but that is a whole separate debate).

Well worth the read as his stuff always is.
While Strategic Risk Analysis Limited will use all reasonable endeav
ours in producing reports to ensure the
information is as accurate as practicable, Strategic Risk Analysis Limi
ted, its employees and shareholders
shall not be liable (whether in contract, tort (including negli
gence), equity or any other basis) for any loss or
damage sustained by any person relying on such work whatever the cause
of such loss or damage
.
1
RODNEY’S RAVING
Immigration policy is handicapping much of the country
Auckland is a major winner from the government’s skilled-b
ased immigration policies, Wellington and
Canterbury benefit to a moderate extent, while Canterb
ury benefits form the rebuilding-related skill-based
policy. All other regions are double losers as a result o
f the skilled-based immigration policies, as explained
and quantified in this Raving.
Skill-based immigration policies would appear to be great
at ensuring the largest group of immigrants,
excluding Kiwis returning form OE, offer skills that fit with
the evolving economy. However, the evolving
economy and the skilled-based immigration policies both f
avour large urban centres over other centres.
This is having a significant impact on regional economic gr
owth, retail spending, residential building and
house prices. The
Regional Barometer
reports we launched this quarter that include analysis of
migration
behaviour provide the best available insights into regiona
l and city/district prospects.
Restricting where immigrants can live would be self-defeating
. In time many skilled immigrants would end
up filtering to the major urban centres even if they we
re originally restricted to living in provincial towns and
cities. However, if the criteria were changed to allow ha
rd-working immigrants in as much as highly skilled
immigrants it would even the playing field. It would allow regio
ns with cheaper housing costs to compete
for immigrants on a much more equal footing with regions
dominating new economy job creationhttp://www.sra.co.nz/pdf/ImmigrationJun14.pdf

Jack5

Japanese 98.5%, Koreans 0.5%, Chinese 0.4%, other 0.6% note: up to 230,000 Brazilians of Japanese origin migrated to Japan in the 1990s to work in industries; some have returned to Brazil.

One interesting point is Japan’s policy on assimilation. My understanding is that Koreans in Japan, even though they may be the third or fourth generation born in Japan, generally retain Korean citizenship, and that Japan doesn’t recognise dual citizenship, so they are not Japanese citizens. I understand also so that many of these ethnic-Korean people in Japan send money to North Korea, and some have even migrated to North Korea.

I understand there are also more than half a million Chinese residents (non-citizens) of Japan.

My question is: what are Japan’s policies to assimilate these Korean and Chinese non-citizens, and do they have any leads for New Zealand?

greenjacket

I know that the Labour Party organisation has become hollowed out, but this is just ridiculous.
Matt McCarten is supposed to the chief of staff, yet he lets his leader go into an interview without basic preparation. And Cunliffe turns up at an interview obviously unprepared – he didn’t even recite facts/numbers and he was unaware what the current government policy is. Pathetic.
It is not that Labour are unprepared to become the government – they are unprepared to be the opposition.

ross411

seanmaitland (433 comments) says:
June 3rd, 2014 at 10:28 am
So, ross411, that means you live in Howick? (seeing as we are taking sarcasm seriously)

Sarcasm is sarcasm. When it depends on references which aren’t necessarily obvious, remembered or even known about, then it just becomes a vague statement that some people will understand and some won’t.

Odakyu-sen

Jack5

I think it’s also an issue of the resident Korean community’s attitude to assimilation in Japan. I don’t believe that the Japanese government prohibits these people from taking Japanese citizenship, but they are required to renounce their Korean citizenship. Japan doesn’t recognize dual citizenship.

Some of these Koreans have relatives in what is now North Korea, and they (like many residents from 3rd-world countries) want to help their relatives in the old country by sending stuff back to them.

More and more Japanese-born Koreans and Chinese are opting to gain nationality in the country of their birth. The vast bulk are probably settling in just fine. I doubt most Japanese could tell them apart.

From the Japanese perspective (damn it’s hard to speak for over 125 million people), I guess its up to these individuals to decide if they wish to be Japanese. If they have been through the Japanese education system, then they will find it easier. On the other hand, if they had nationalistic parents who sent them to Korean schools in Japan, they may have a harder time (not withstanding their parents’ meddling).

It’s not up to the Japanese government. (Stop thinking like a New Zealander.) It’s up to the individual to choose their path in life. And if you have been born in Japan, and have grown up in Japanese society, look like a Nihon-jin and are a native speaker of Japanese, then why not tell your parents to go to hell, and sign up to become a member of the winning team? (Of course, they’ll hate you for it. And remember, forgiveness is a Christian thing, boys and girls…)

Jack5

China’s policy on immigration may be of some relevance to this, since so many of Auckland’s immigrants now come from China.

The BBC reports China is looking at easing its immigration policy because at present it is issuing only 248 “green cards” a year allowing permanent residence, while 27 million foreigners enter the country every year.

The policy change seems to be aimed at attracting foreign talent to work in China.